


At the Shore

by Tawabids



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairytale, Gore, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tawabids/pseuds/Tawabids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is transformed into a black swan at dawn and returned to human form at dusk. John comes searching to break him from Moriarty's curse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Shore

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [this prompt at the Sherlock BBC kinkmeme community.](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/9100.html?thread=44293772)

The dawn was always blood and pain. Sherlock had called it transport, had scoffed at death, had brushed off hunger and days without sleep. But every day at dawn his mind became a hollow, and the hollow was filled screams, and every morning it surprised him that it hurt this much again.

He felt his bones drain first. It was as if tiny black holes opened up into his skeleton, a pinprick at a time, dragging his marrow into the void. Loss was bad, but the growing was worse, the fusing of joints, the disintegration of cartilage cushions, the rapid migration of osteoblasts, ripping aside ligaments and nerves. Muscles tore off like guy ropes in a violent storm. He would fall to the ground, unable even to catch himself, and the sun would smile down at him like the angel of death. 

His internal organs swirled inside him like sheets in the tumble dryer at home, the one he had always complained about because it was old and noisy. The alveoli in his lungs popped in their millions. His clothes faded like mist, but the feathers did not come so peacefully.

The feathers, oh God, his skin was shredding, every nerve was on fire. He cursed Moriarty, grinding his forehead into the dewy grass, he cursed whoever had sold his enemy this twisted spell. His fingers were torn from their sockets as they stretched and shrunk, reassembling into delicate wingspans. His eyes bulged and were squeezed into new sockets on either side of his head, his throat was mangled as it thinned and his diaphragm shrivelled into nothing, rendering him temporarily suffocated by his own anatomy. At last, he opened his beak and the air rushed into new lungs that inflated like white sails on a ship’s first journey. 

He filled them with a cry of relief, his voice carrying across the lake to scatter the other swans that swam there. Stupid, filthy birds, true birds. Sherlock avoided them at all costs, drawing blood with his beak if necessary. His greatest fear was that one day, one terrible day, the transformation would carry on that final step. He would lose this mind, and be left as one of those squawking beasts, shitting himself and fighting for a lay. 

But today, today was different - today his fears were eased. He flapped his wings and made an ungainly bolt for the edge of the lake, taking off just as his clawed feet brushed the water. He sailed up into the sky until he could see the reserve spread out below him. The spell prevented him from leaving the grounds, and flying did not come close to making up for the pain of the transformation, but it was some consolation. It separated him from the animals that his body shared kinship with. It gave him a chance to think. It gave him a chance to plan. And now all his plans were coming to fruition. 

Because tonight, John was coming for him. 

The dusk found him on the lake, waiting until the very last minute for the transition. It was equally painful in reverse, but if he stayed close to the bank the water soothed it somewhat. And waiting on the water gave him ample view of the paths that wended around the lake. It had to be tonight. All his secret messages, all his clues planted on unsuspecting tourists, even once - in a dire moment - on Moriarty himself during one of his taunting visits. John was not as bright as Sherlock or Jim, no, but he was not stupid. He had to have figured it all out.

But Sherlock's eyesight in this body was poor. He listened desperately and could hear no heavy thump of human footfalls. The reserve was empty and gated. And the sun was setting. Already he felt heavy in the water, the first tingle of the old bones. He paddled with webbed, weakening feet to the edge of the lake. 

His feathers turned to needles and drew themselves back into his body. He sunk to the slimy bottom and found his feet enveloped by the heavy shoes he had worn the day the spell had been cast. His femurs cracked into tiny fragments as they lengthened and then solidified back into dense, human bones. His knees were tangled in the weeds, his kneecaps aching as they grew back into place.

His wings against the water could no longer hold him up, and he splashed uselessly to keep his head afloat, his chest constricted as the ribs broke again and again as they tightened like a corset. He felt the unbearable itch of hair curling out of his scalp, heard his nose click back into joint, parted his lips to gasp at the cold night air.

One of his new hands had grabbed a handful of grass on the water's edge. He began to haul himself up, his clothes soaked from head to toe, almost too heavy for his shivering, reattached muscles to cope. He reached his other hand, coated in mud, out of the water - and felt hot, strong fingers wrap around it.

"I've got you!" 

In his surprise, Sherlock's foot slipped among the weeds and he gurgled as his face plunged back under the water. But John held him fast and pulled him up again. Stocky, strong John, towing him out like a persistent tugboat, dragging him onto the grass like a sloppy, miserable afterbirth. 

"John," his just-formed vocal chords croaked. 

"I'm here," John held him head-down, letting the water dribble from his mouth and nose. "Christ, I can't... I can't believe what I just saw... it's not... it's impossible..."

"Check the facts," Sherlock wheezed, and John laughed, bubbly and frightened by real. Here. 

"And all those clues, all those bizarre things I had to do to find you... it's like something out of a..."

"Fairytale?" sneered a voice.

Sherlock raised his dripping head and saw Moriarty standing a few feet away. No snipers this time, no clean hands, just Moriarty and a well-oiled Kimber Custom II at the end of his arm. He flicked off the safety and cocked it. "Well done, dear John," he smarmed, the grin spreading across his face. "You performed all the tests _brilliantly_. I'd give you a medal, but well," he shrugged, "how about I just leave it on your headstone?"

Sherlock wiped the drips from his eyes with the heel of his hand. Moriarty sighed. "Thanks for playing," he said, and fired.

Perhaps he didn't think that Sherlock could move so fast after his transformation. Perhaps he simply thought that single-minded, self-serving Sherlock would never do something selfless for another human being. Or perhaps he was just an idiot.

The bullet bit in deep and high on Sherlock's chest. He couldn't have placed a better shot for the aorta. He felt John close around him, warm arms and warm jersey through his own cold, wet clothes and hot, pumping blood. "Sherlock!" John was shouting. "Shit," his groans were so low Sherlock felt them through John's chest, through John's perfect, unbroken ribcage. He wanted to tell John, it's all fine, it doesn't hurt a bit compared to the transformations, but his lungs were still winded from the impact.

"Oh, oh gosh, John, I'm sorry, I think I missed you," Moriarty's faux-concern irritated Sherlock immensely. Couldn't the man just shut up and let him die in peace?

He grasped with cooling fingers for John's collar and pulled his friend's head down. "I meant to do that," he whispered, feeling blood bubble in his ruptured oesophagus.

"You stupid bastard," John sobbed.

"No, I mean, it was the only way," Sherlock couldn't make his voice work properly. John had to understand. What was about to happen wasn't an accident. Sherlock had done this, Sherlock had been clever right to the end. People ought to know. "He cast the spell. It can't be broken. It has to be somewhere. And now it's going back to him."

John shook his head, his face crumpled and confused, and then looked up at Moriarty.

Moriarty was rubbing his mouth, still clicking his tongue in mockery. Then he frowned and looked at his hand. A dark forest of hairs seemed to be growing from it. The feathers broadened, tearing open Moriarty's skin like insects bursting from a rotting corpse. Moriarty began to scream as the spell, wild and miscast, tore apart his body. It would leave behind only a mound of feathered, deformed flesh that bore a passing resemblance to a swan. 

Sherlock blocked out his screams, deleting them from his hard drive even as they entered his aural nerve. But he felt John's arms around him as his fantastic, brilliant mind flickered and began to fail from lack of blood. 

It was the only thing he remembered until the very end.


End file.
